Sacked blind baker treated unfavourably - tribunal

Ian Stanley was dismissed six weeks into his three-month probationary period

A man who is registered blind is seeking a £112,000 payout after being sacked during his probation period at a bakery.

An employment tribunal found that not enough was done by bosses at The Village Bakery in Coedpoeth, Wrexham, to accommodate Ian Stanley and help him adjust to his role.

He was dismissed six weeks into his three-month probationary period which the company claimed was on health and safety grounds, that production levels were affected and there was a risk of damage to machinery.

An employment tribunal upheld his claim of "unfavourable treatment" in being dismissed because of his disability and a further hearing will decide a financial settlement.

Tribunal judge Rhian Brace said: "We accept that in principle the aims relied on were capable of being legitimate aims, we were only persuaded that the first, that of efficient production, was in the respondent's mind when dismissing the claimant."

Mr Stanley, who was diagnosed with Bardet Biedl syndrome, an inherited genetic condition, in 2010, had previously worked as a packer in another factory for 18 years when he was taken on by The Village Bakery last July.

The tribunal heard that his bosses knew of his disability and night shift manager Kevin Jones said he very soon received reports that Mr Stanley was making lots of mistakes, crashing racks of bread into machinery, dropping loaves and not cleaning trays properly.

He was given various jobs, including measuring the temperature of the bread, but had difficulty reading the thermometer.

He also had problems in using a small keypad to clock in.

The tribunal found that he should have been given more time to learn the layout of the factory and other procedures.

"We concluded that giving the claimant more time to familiarise himself with the processes, the people and the factory environment would have been a practicable step that would have been effective," said the judge.

'Cost-effective'

Tom Breeze, manager of the bakery which employs 170, said the company could not afford to employ someone to help Mr Stanley even on a short-term basis, but this was rejected by the tribunal.

"Even if this adjustment had a significant cost associated with it, which we were not persuaded that it would, it may still have been cost-effective in overall terms – for example, compared with the costs of slowing down the production and paying someone to take on half of the claimant's workload, which the respondent appears to have been undertaking," said the judge.

The panel also rejected the argument that health and safety issues were a consideration because Mr Stanley had been allowed to continue working for six weeks without a health and safety assessment.

Another hearing will be held to decide on the financial settlement.

But Mr Stanley has applied for £33,404 for the loss of past and future wages, £35,000 for injury to feelings, a 25% uplift for the company's alleged failure to follow the arbitration practice and a further sum for aggravated damages in the way in which the company conducted its case.